In the 1970s, Casino dance from Cuba was market as Cuban-style salsa or Salsa Cubana to differentiate it from other styles.
Casino dancing in Cuba embodies the vibrant social culture, connecting people through their love for popular music and tradition.
The name “Casino” comes from “casinos deportivos,” dance halls where affluent white Cubans danced socially from the mid-1950s onward.
Culturally, Casino is dance as an interplay between genders and feeling the music (Sabor) as its main ingredients.
Casino dancing is influenced by Afro-Caribbean culture, emphasizing sexual interplay, teasing, and everyday experiences.
Casino styling features “macho” men and feminine women, with pronounce body and muscle isolations, influenced by Rumba.
Originally meaning “party” in northern Cuba, “rumba” by the late 19th century came to refer to Cuban rumba’s music and dance styles.
During the second half of the 19th century, several secular dance-oriented music styles were develop by Afro-Cuban workers.
These syncretic styles would later refer to as “rumba”.
Traditionally, the three main rumba dance styles—yambú, columbia, and guaguancó—are each known for their unique dance, rhythm, and singing.
Despite its folkloric roots, rumba has evolved with innovations since the mid-20th century, including styles like batá-rumba and guarapachangueo.
Bachata is a genre of music that originate in the 20th century.
It contains elements of European (mainly Spanish music), indigenous Taino and African musical elements.
The Bachata originates from bolero and son (and later, from the mid-1980s, merengue).
The original term used to name the genre was amargue (“bitterness”, “bitter music”), until the mood-neutral term bachata became popular.
The form of dance, bachata, also develop with the music.
In the 21st century, Bachata evolved with urban styles created by bands like Monchy y Alexandra and Aventura.
These modern bachata styles became an international phenomenon, making bachata one of the most popular Latin dance styles today.
The genre was declare an Intangible Cultural Heritage of humanity by UNESCO.
Kizomba is a dance and musical genre that originate in Angola in 1984.
It means “party” in Kimbundu, a Bantu language spoken by the Ambundu in Angola.
The origins of kizomba can be traced to late-1970s Africa, with influences variably attribute to Angola.
Kizomba dance is characterize by a slower, romantic, more sensuous rhythm than the traditional Angolan semba music.
Kizomba music emerge as a fusion of Semba, Angolan Merengue, Kilapanga, and further Angolan music influences:
It slowed down the cadence of songs and added a stronger bass line to the composition of instruments.
Most kizomba songs are sung in Portuguese or a dialect from the various Portuguese-speaking, African cultures.
The Kizomba dance is a couple dance, in which the torso and right arm of the leader will guide the follower across the dance floor.
The goal is to synchronize perfectly as a couple with the music, expressing it through elegant footwork, smooth body movement, and attitude.
The cha-cha-cha, is a dance of Cuban origin. This rhythm was develop from the danzón-mambo.
In the early 1950s, Enrique Jorrín worked as a violinist and composer with the charanga group Orquesta América.
The group perform at dance halls in Havana where they played danzón, danzonete, and danzon-mambo for dance-oriented crowds.
Jorrín notice that many of the dancers at these gigs had difficulty with the syncopate rhythms of the danzón-mambo.
To make his music more appealing to dancers, Jorrín began composing songs where the melody was mark strongly on the first downbeat and the rhythm was less syncopate.
When Orquesta América perform these new compositions at the Silver Star Club in Havana, it was notice that the dancers had improvise a triple step in their footwork producing the sound “cha-cha-cha”.
Thus, the new dance style came to be know as “cha-cha-chá” and became associate with a dance where dancers perform a triple step.
Mambo is a Latin dance of Cuba which was develop in the 1940s when the music genre of the same name became popular throughout Latin America.
The original ballroom dance which emerge in Cuba and Mexico was related to the danzón, albeit faster and less rigid.
In the United States, it replace rhumba as the most fashionable Latin dance.
Later on, with the advent of salsa and its more sophisticate dance, a new type of mambo dance including breaking steps was popularize in New York.
This form receive the name of “salsa on 2”, “mambo on 2” or “modern mambo”.
Son cubano is a genre of music and dance that originate in the highlands of eastern Cuba during the late 19th century.
It is a syncretic genre that blends elements of Spanish and African origin.
Around 1909 the son reached Havana, where the first recordings were made in 1917.
This marked the start of its expansion throughout the island, becoming Cuba’s most popular and influential genre.
The international presence of the son can be trace back to the 1930s when many bands tour Europe and North America, leading to ballroom adaptations of the genre such as the American rhumba.
Similarly, radio broadcasts of son became popular in West Africa and the Congos, leading to the development of hybrid genres such as Congolese rumba.
In the 1960s, New York’s music scene prompt the rapid success of salsa, a combination of son and other Latin American styles primarily record by Puerto Ricans.
While salsa achieved international popularity during the second half of the 20th century, in Cuba son evolve into other styles such as songo and timba, the latter of which is sometimes known as “Cuban salsa”.
